Windows 11 leaks online - first impressions

[Gaidax]

I personally have MBP and Dell Precision same year and they cost the same both being topped out machines and as far as user experience goes MBP really kicks the living shit out of Dell.

One thing that drives me mad about said Dell Precision is how hot and loud it often gets... like what the f00k. What the bloody fudge I'm running there intellij and some stuff? Really Dell? MBP same stuff - chill and nice.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I've got an Ubuntu laptop from like 10 years ago kicking around here somewhere when I briefly bought into the idea myself.

I class that in the "I'm glad I tried it, but I never have to try it again" category of things.

Well I have some more lying around, mostly because it's used on many raspis and they in turn have become so cheap that I stopped fiddling around with microcontroller boards outside of work. But that's probably not really relevant to Linux's desktop presence.

[Logwyn]

And I almost bought Microsoft's lie about W10 being the last OS and they'll just keep updating it forever. Almost.

I am more surprised that they did not go with a subscription model so that in order to get Win10 updates you had to pay a monthly fee.

[Slant]

That's the idiots in the company's fault, not the OS.

It's never the OS's fault. But it's just a fact that business software just exists for Windows. And it often just doesn't for MacOS. Or didn't. It's better now, but still, why would you - as a company - pay the premium on Mac hardware if all you need is literally a terminal that can run a remote terminal software since everything is in the fucking cloud now?

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I've got an Ubuntu laptop from like 10 years ago kicking around here somewhere when I briefly bought into the idea myself.

I class that in the "I'm glad I tried it, but I never have to try it again" category of things.

If it wasn't for gaming, I'd still be on Linux. I felt much more in control there and it was much easier to fine tune it to my needs.

[Ihavewaffles]

I don't see why the icons on the bottom bar are in the middle instead of to the left..

When can we have .gif wallpapers?...

[dwarven]

So you're a product manager who zooms and updates Jira and uses Outlook and PowerPoint and some BI tools. Do you choose:
A) Hot loud Dell that will not last you whole workday on battery
B) Cool silent MBP that will last you whole workday

I mean... On what planet are people choosing A? Also, on what planet do people develop iOS apps on Windows?

Macbooks also last forever. I only just upgraded from a 2013 Macbook Air a month ago, and only because it became sluggish at running Lightroom. Everything else works just fine, battery health is still at ~80% after a zillion recharge cycles. I'm think of putting a new battery in it from iFixit and using it as a file server or something. My sister still uses her MBP that has a CD drive in it lol.

[Iliena]

Nearly every modern electronic device and server is Linux based, apart from desktop PC's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

If Microsoft don't sort themselves out and start treating there customers like customers again and not just a commodity to farm for ad data, Linux will carry on growing and make more inroads into the desktop market IMO.

[crewskater]

Betting any money they will remove Control Panel.

[Easo]

Yeah life comparing mbp and dells is easier when 2021 and late 2020 don't exist. Everyone at the office are so happy with M1s, I will personally notify them that they actually have actually expensive laptops with bad screens, bad touchpads and they are hot and loud.

Regarding your second point - a nice office building, which is owned by the company and has nice big yard with plants and gazebos and what not. I spend summer works hours outside. M1 battery life helps. :-) Also, ever heard of workations? Like, jesus, you dell people, your life fucking sucks. Corporate lifeless drones. Next month I will be spending my work days literally at the beach, whole 8 hours. Thanks Apple! With Dell I had to spend morning at the hotel plugged in, and only move to the beach for second half of the day.

All I can say is lol. Calling people corporate drones is, yeah, is one of the reasons why people tend to laugh at Apple users.
P.S.
You said MBP for work at first, no mention of workstations until later. Work includes more stuff than browsing the web. Otherwise what's the point of MBP then?
*goes away to listen to MBP's screaming while compiling something*

[Endus]

Nearly every modern electronic device and server is Linux based, apart from desktop PC's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

If Microsoft don't sort themselves out and start treating there customers like customers again and not just a commodity to farm for ad data, Linux will carry on growing and make more inroads into the desktop market IMO.

Linux has been "about to make inroads into the desktop market any day now" for at least the last 20 years. Without their market share significantly increasing at any point in that time frame.

[Iliena]

Linux has been "about to make inroads into the desktop market any day now" for at least the last 20 years. Without their market share significantly increasing at any point in that time frame.

Yes but just like how WoW was the only MMO in town for about 15 years.... back to back poor expansions and people are now looking around for alternatives.

Microsoft is in the same boat, since XP Window's tended to work just fine most of the time, even Win10 had a good roll out, but constant fiddling and taking months to fix problems there updates caused just isn't good enough for a paid product. I'm not saying it's going to take over but for enthusiast it is already getting more popular, because once installed it just works.

[ldev]

*goes away to listen to MBP's screaming while compiling something*

Again, 2021 and 2020 happened. Like, how the tables have turned - windows users are now deploying reality distortion field where ARM revolution didn't happen lol.

All I can say is lol. Calling people corporate drones is, yeah, is one of the reasons why people tend to laugh at Apple users.

Well, duh, captain obvious. This is everywhere - flat earthers laugh at globetards, anti vaxxers laugh at covidiots who fear covid, etc. Plenty of windows users going "hehehe for cheaper I can get shit battery life and shit touchpad and shit screen and shit creaking plastic laptops, take that, apple users!" )

[Tradu]

Yes but just like how WoW was the only MMO in town for about 15 years.... back to back poor expansions and people are now looking around for alternatives.

Microsoft is in the same boat, since XP Window's tended to work just fine most of the time, even Win10 had a good roll out, but constant fiddling and taking months to fix problems there updates caused just isn't good enough for a paid product. I'm not saying it's going to take over but for enthusiast it is already getting more popular, because once installed it just works.

People have been looking for WoW alternatives since 2005.

[C20]

I want to reserve judgement until the actual official announcement, but from what I see right now, I have no intention of downloading it.

I like where Windows 10 is right now. The start menu in W11 just seems ridiculous. MS fought for so long to try and make the start menu likeable after the shambles that was W8... so now they've decided it was a good time to fuck it up.

The new wallpapers are nice, and I've actually switched to using one of them (even though I'll rarely see it).

There's so little substance to this release, that it makes me think that it's a very old release. They tried to take the W10X concept that we saw ~2 years ago and run with it. It just won't work on a desktop. MS of all people should know this after their massive fuckup with enforcing the tablet-by-default decision on every device running Windows 8. Sure, you could disable it, but it was only because third-parties realised that it was a stupid fucking idea to force that on desktop.

Guess we'll have to see what substance it actually offers at the official announcement.

Yes but just like how WoW was the only MMO in town for about 15 years.... back to back poor expansions and people are now looking around for alternatives.

Microsoft is in the same boat, since XP Window's tended to work just fine most of the time, even Win10 had a good roll out, but constant fiddling and taking months to fix problems there updates caused just isn't good enough for a paid product. I'm not saying it's going to take over but for enthusiast it is already getting more popular, because once installed it just works.

Except Microsoft aren't in the same boat at all.

Ubuntu went through this huge marketing campaign about a decade ago where they offered easy ways to install their distro without needing to be an IT expert. The problem with it was that it just wasn't a competitor to what Windows offered for the average or even enthusiast users. Need GPU drivers? Good luck. Want to install applications? Windows is easier - just double-click. Will it run my games? Sure... well, sort of... but not quite as well as Windows.

These same problems are still present today in some form or another. GPU driver support is still a very rough area from what I've read. There's still a multitude of ways to install programs, and very few of them seem to be double-click to install. Mac also has this issue, and it's 1 (of many) reasons why I stay away from Apple for most devices (I have an iPad, mostly for development reasons, but also because the entire tablet market is overshadowed by the iPad).

This doesn't mean Windows is better, just that it's more suited to the general populace. I'd still choose Linux for servers or anything network related. I'd still choose bash over CMD or powershell because the experience of it is much better.

MS still haven't release VS on Linux, so that shuts out a lot of the developers who rely on it.

Betting any money they will remove Control Panel.

That's my thought too. I'm definitely not onboard with that being a good thing. Dumbing things down for the lowest common denominator, that's fine... but not when it involves tearing out the long-running version that many people are so used to.

I am more surprised that they did not go with a subscription model so that in order to get Win10 updates you had to pay a monthly fee.

Back in 2006 or so, Microsoft were driving real hard on the "Pay us or get fucked" approach. Then Sasser happened, and suddenly they realised that by potentially excluding pirates from updates, they were risking their legitimate customers as well. It was a shitstorm that I'll admit was pretty fun to watch unfold.

They've not got a strong track record with delivering reliable updated to Windows 10. There's reports every single time an update goes out about someone's PC getting wrecked because of some weird edge case. Charging for it would just drive people to look at alternative options, be that using a different OS, or working to strip out all their telemetry, 'always on' accounts and other stuff.

[breadisfunny]

i'm wondering why windows is only going with a 18 month grace period instead of the 5 year grace period they usually do this time around...

[Ringthane]

I remember people claiming that as far back as the 90's.

Exactly. Seek out some old Boot magazines (what MaximumPC was called before it sold out, they hired that Will guy to be chief editor, and it slid into the toilet). They were preaching Linux back when you still had to compile your kernel.

[Noctiphobia]

So, pretty much almost nothing changed?
Taskbar is centered, but as far as I know, that can be changed, so it doesn't matter.
The contents of the taskbar are concerning. I'm hoping I can still customize it the way I did in Windows 10 (resize everything to small, group things by category, no labels, ~8 icons per row with the slimmest option), otherwise that's going to be a deal breaker to me, since start menu and things pinned to taskbar are 99% of things I launch.
The downgrade to disgusting rounded corners is regrettable, and I doubt this can be disabled, but it's still only a minor issue. And apparently most people seem to prefer rounded corners, so I can't blame them for doing it.
The things on the maximize button are pretty nice, but ultimately nothing new, given that you could already achieve the same thing by dragging the window into a corner/to an edge.
Still no tabs in Windows Explorer, which is honestly something that should have been added at least 10-15 years ago. Hoping they'll do it later.
So, all in all, not groundbreaking changes. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just an update to Windows 10, though I guess it's not. Anyway, I'm hoping that it will be an actual improvement (like tabs in explorer), and if it's not, that they won't force upgrade by gating new DirectX or something behind it.

[Morgaith]

Wasn't windows 10 meant to be the final windows?

[Lucetia]

Take note - no ugly unused white space at the bottom, while bar icons are centered. Shocking.

The "but it used to be this way in 80s, so it's how it should be" is just silly.

I get that some people like MacOS, but I think both the bottom and top bars are just atrocious. The bottom bar is a pain at times then you have all that unused real estate at the top as well. The bottom is more like a "quick launch" which is what you can do with windows.

With windows I prefer have the bottom bar since it's just one spot and you can even "auto hide it" just like how MacOS operates. With that said the only thing I'm disappointed in is that it is centered like that, but pretty sure something like ClassicShell will be able to skin it and bring it to the left just like they did with the new start menu designing it like the old one.

[Ealyssa]

Wasn't windows 10 meant to be the final windows?

Looks like they remembered how lucrative selling a new windows to hundreds of million clients was.